Ketchup on stroganoff divides opinions and chefs debate traditional recipe

No one questions any more that stroganoff has long since descended from gastronomic Olympus and entered the honorable list of Brazilians’ favorite PFs. Even more so after the pandemic, when the dish did well by traveling well in the delivery of several restaurants that, if they didn’t already offer it on the menu, quickly incorporated it into the available recipes.

It was agreed, therefore, that eating meat with sauce, rice and potatoes is no longer fancy, but for people like us. But what about the ketchup controversy, has a consensus been reached? After all, is the condiment allowed to enter the pan or not?

“I like ketchup, I even love eating noodles with ketchup,” confesses chef Erick Jacquin, from the Président restaurant and a judge on the MasterChef program. The ingredient is part of your stroganoff recipe.

“Boto and I speak because I think people have the right to know what they are eating. Americans found in ketchup the smoky side that paprika offered. Paprika is a spice that enhances the flavor of dishes, it’s a very nice seasoning”, he says .

For him, the popularization of stroganoff — a recipe considered sophisticated in the 1970s — took place after people learned to make it at home. “It became an executive menu dish”, he remembers.

And if ketchup is not a villain for him, is there any possible sin in the execution of a stroganoff, in chef Jacquin’s view? “You can’t let it turn into soup,” he says.

“The sauce is neither thin nor thick, it has the right consistency. You have to be able to wipe the plate with a cloth after finishing. The sauce must be in balance with the protein, without excess sauce”, he teaches.

Jacquin’s Stroganoff starts with the cream alone in the skillet. Afterwards, the chef reserves, adds mushrooms, salt, pepper and onion in the same pan, and then returns with the cream and adds the meat only later.

“Filet mignon, if left for a long time, turns into rubber, and meat cut into cubes is minced,” he concludes.

Ivan Ralston, ex-Tuju, now Tujuína, added stroganoff to the delivery menu that the restaurant offered throughout most of the quarantine. Alongside the oxtail, pasta, minced meat and fish, there was chef Ralston’s strogon recipe—and, guess what, with ketchup in the composition.

“It’s a good dish for delivery, because stewed food is less affected, since, having a sauce involved, it holds better”, he explains. “Mine has ketchup, sour cream, brandy, filet mignon, Worcestershire sauce. I serve it with straw potatoes and basmati rice, which I find super aromatic and gives a little ‘tchanzinho’.”

“Stroganoff recipes differ a lot when you start researching. When I learned in college, I didn’t have ketchup, but it was with grain mustard and julienne onion, completely different from what I make and like”, recalls the gastronomy researcher Juliana Ventura.

“I add ketchup. I season the meat with salt and pepper, and sprinkle wheat flour on it, because that makes any mince creamier,” says Juliana, who also uses cognac to ignite her recipe.

Along with three other partners, businessman Fábio Prado bought the stroganoff recipe from his favorite restaurant in Russia, and currently reproduces it at Stroganov, a house he opened with friends in Itaim.

“Our great difference is that neither cream nor ketchup is available. We make our own cream, which is lighter, it’s a secret. In meat, we make a frosting that takes two or three days to be ready”, he shares Meadow.

The businessman believes that his recipe is the closest to a mythical original recipe for the dish, supposedly invented by a Russian family.

“My partner’s mother is Croatian, and she had a recipe that was very similar. But here we had to adapt, because there they don’t eat with rice or straw potatoes, but rather boiled or sautéed potatoes.”

In addition to the classic with meat, Stroganov also serves versions made with chicken, shrimp, mushrooms and the so-called fit, with almond milk and sweet potatoes.